Assigment #2

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s only, yet still very influential, novel entitled “Invisible Man”, we are introduced to a nameless, faceless narrator whose life as a black man is seemingly dictated only by the color of his skin. Certainly confused and unsure of his ultimate purpose and worth, the narrator often struggles in defining the social status of himself and the black population around him. Stemming from a haunting warning received as a child from his dying grandfather, the narrator feels confined by the stereotypes of his race and often curses his people as conforming to the oppressive wishes of white people. The novel begins and ends in the same setting, with our narrator in an hole, underground, in the basement of a building of all white tenants. The narrator attempts to illustrate to the reader why, even given his relatively fortune (being educated and highly able), his life has been reduced to one of such dismal seclusion.
The narrator leads the reader through his life, first a young child living in the south and his subsequent years living in Harlem, New York City. As alluded to, he is continuously reminded of his grandfather’s dying words and often measures his success in terms of the level at which he conforms to the wishes of the white population. However, throughout his struggle of defining himself and his relationship to the world around him, he finds it is not just the white man he needs to be weary of. As a promising child he is scarred by an incident at a men’s club, where the white men of his town grant the narrator scholarship to an all black college, only after they humiliate and exploit the boy for their own entertainment. While attending the all black college he meets the dean, Dr. Bledsoe, and decides Dr. Bledsoe is a black man whom he should aspire toward. However, Dr. Bledsoe betrays the narrator by expelling him for a relatively minor offense. Furthermore, Dr. Bledsoe provides the narrator with letters of recommendation which do not speak to his abilities, but rather deem him unable and unworthy of quality work. Additionally, whatever purpose the narrator finds in his position with The Brotherhood, a communist organization in Harlem who he works for, is squashed when the group decides to pursue issues other than the needs of the black community in Harlem.
Throughout his novel, Emerson depicts a character that struggles with his own “invisibility”, a seemingly blank soul whose identity is solely defined by the prejudices and stereotypes imparted upon him, and perpetuated by both the white and black populations. By the end of the novel, however, the narrator rejects his invisibility, and vows not to conform to the expectations of white society. The narrator commits himself toward the purpose of living a life not defined by racial boundaries, serving not as the voice of the black population, but rather as the voice of humanity as a whole.